Puppy Love

This is Stella (aka Stellllaaaaaaaaa!), the newest member of our family and stealer of sleep, bringer of chaos, bringer of joy!  We're smitten!

 I'd love to post some more pics, but, being the squirmy little creature that she is, it's hard to get her to hold still long enough to pose for the camera.

We're having so much fun with her!  She came home with us last Saturday, Oct. 15th, from the Berkeley Animal Shelter, the very same place that dear old Spider once resided.  We've been missing that old gal like crazy, and we always will.  And also, we've been feeling for awhile that we're ready to have a new dog friend, not only for ourselves, but for big Bloom, who's been pretty lonely without his old pal.

This is a pic of Bloom & Spider together on her last day of life.  Still breaks my heart!!

We thought we'd wait until the end of the year, but oops, we just couldn't resist a visit to the shelter last Saturday... and when we met this little bundle of energy, it didn't take long to come to the conclusion that the time was going to be now, and the dog was going to be her.  Our fates were sealed!

The listing on Petfinder.com said she was part of a litter of Great Dane mix puppies, but the paperwork they sent us home with says she's part Mastiff.  We saw a picture of her mama, and she looked kind of like a chocolate Lab, so who knows?  As of now, she weighs 31 pounds and is approximately 4 months old.  She'll probably be bigger than Spider was, but not as big as Bloom.

We start dog training class tomorrow, hooray!  It'll be a great learning experience for all of us, I'm sure.  Having a new dog has got me reading a lot and thinking a lot about how to best raise her to be happy and healthy pup who'll live a good long life.  I'm quite intrigued by the possibility of a raw foods diet, or maybe even a cooked foods diet.  I've read a lot of articles that seem to say that at worst, dried kibble dog food is full of all sorts of awful things, and that even the higher quality brands are very highly processed.  I don't want to consume many processed foods or meat from factory farms, and I would rather my pets didn't either, but I still have some research to do.  Food for thought.

And speaking of food... I'm still searching for the perfect recipe for Ribolitta, that amazing Tuscan soup with kale & cannellini beans that we had several times in Florence.  I made my own  version last week, and while it was good, it wasn't insanely, dreamily good like it was in Florence... but then, I guess most things aren't!  But I'm going to keep trying out recipes so if anybody out there has tips, please send them my way.

Lastly... I'm trying out some new looks here at Soup and Song, so apologies if things look funny for awhile.  Thanks for checking in. Hope all is well in your world!